Good luck with that. My dad logged for 40 years. He retired at 75 years old. He really should be dead after cutting himself open several times and breaking his neck not once, not twice, but THREE times.

ecmoRandomNumbers:Good luck with that. My dad logged for 40 years. He retired at 75 years old. He really should be dead after cutting himself open several times and breaking his neck not once, not twice, but THREE times.

I rode in a tow truck yesterday and the driver said even though they were starting brand new drivers at $48K a year - they couldn't keep enough long term. He said half of them quit the first day it rains. That baffled me - if you qualify (clean driving record) - then it's much better money than you'll pull down at McDonald's or Wal-Mart, and the demand isn't cyclical like construction.

It's almost like people don't want to work in a hyper dangerous career with no long term benefits, an unstable monetary reward and guaranteed health risk for "almost middle class in bumfark nowhere" rewards

I rode in a tow truck yesterday and the driver said even though they were starting brand new drivers at $48K a year - they couldn't keep enough long term. He said half of them quit the first day it rains. That baffled me - if you qualify (clean driving record) - then it's much better money than you'll pull down at McDonald's or Wal-Mart, and the demand isn't cyclical like construction.

These days, you know what a kid with a clean driving record is, don't you?

A kid that hasn't driven.

Seriously, with the way cops are today, you're not going to find anyone with driving experience who doesn't have a few tickets. They're hiring the kids that didn't get licenses until they absolutely had to, and putting them in trucks. Of course they're going to get scared.

Something tells me the money ain't that good, and it's not just the article.

If I wanted to destroy my body and risk my life for a payday, I would either take up commercial diving or try to be a professional athlete. At least both of those pay real money. It sounds a bit like logging doesn't even pay well by the standard of manual trades, so even being a welder or plumber or electrician would be better (and certainly be less dangerous). So either the pay has to go up or it has to get a lot safer and easier.

I know the social standard is "the harder you work with your body and the more you deal with real things, the less you make," but at some point you find nobody will work that hard and take those risks for shiat pay.

I rode in a tow truck yesterday and the driver said even though they were starting brand new drivers at $48K a year - they couldn't keep enough long term. He said half of them quit the first day it rains. That baffled me - if you qualify (clean driving record) - then it's much better money than you'll pull down at McDonald's or Wal-Mart, and the demand isn't cyclical like construction.

I don't know, towing broken down cars is one thing but if you're picking up people's cars that are in tow zones you have to deal with some real stress. You're the bad guy to everyone who's car you touch. I don't think I would do it, and frankly I could use the money.

Also, check the hours. I know drivers of buses and such get SCREWED on hours, working insane days (the company I just left routinely has drivers start at 6 am and end at 10 pm, gets around the rules by giving them 'breaks' which allow them to sleep for an hour or so between runs, etc.). If they keep crazy hours, only desperate people will put up with it.

I rode in a tow truck yesterday and the driver said even though they were starting brand new drivers at $48K a year - they couldn't keep enough long term. He said half of them quit the first day it rains. That baffled me - if you qualify (clean driving record) - then it's much better money than you'll pull down at McDonald's or Wal-Mart, and the demand isn't cyclical like construction.

I don't know, towing broken down cars is one thing but if you're picking up people's cars that are in tow zones you have to deal with some real stress. You're the bad guy to everyone who's car you touch. I don't think I would do it, and frankly I could use the money.

Also, check the hours. I know drivers of buses and such get SCREWED on hours, working insane days (the company I just left routinely has drivers start at 6 am and end at 10 pm, gets around the rules by giving them 'breaks' which allow them to sleep for an hour or so between runs, etc.). If they keep crazy hours, only desperate people will put up with it.

Yeah broke downs don't sound bad. Screw being one of those guys that has to carry a gun because people want to fark you up for lifting there car because they screwed up where they parked for 8 minutes and now you got it up on the truck and are demanding $125 just to spend 5 seconds to put it back down or you have to tell them it will be $200 if they can't get the $125 right now.

adamatari:I don't know, towing broken down cars is one thing but if you're picking up people's cars that are in tow zones you have to deal with some real stress. You're the bad guy to everyone who's car you touch. I don't think I would do it, and frankly I could use the money.

Well, cops are the bad guys to criminals, and debt collectors are the bad guys to people who don't pay their bills and so on... It's not the tow truck drivers' fault that some moran parked his car in a tow zone.

As far as logging---I know someone's got to do it, but having to take a handful of pills each day just to walk at 57, not to mention the risk of breaking your neck, cutting off your limbs and so on just doesn't appeal to me that much. And the money is probably decent but not extraordinary. If you want to make big bucks in resource mining I'd think you'd be better off on an oil rig somewhere.

Yet Justin, 30, plans to stick with the tree business - so long as he can find someone to replace his brother."You can find a truck driver - that's not hard. The hard thing is gonna be finding somebody to run that saw," he says.

proteus_b:Well, cops are the bad guys to criminals, and debt collectors are the bad guys to people who don't pay their bills and so on... It's not the tow truck drivers' fault that some moran parked his car in a tow zone

Yeah, but people are known to be rational and accepting of their own faults. The tow away guy can get shot for doing his job.

This is like that bullshiat "Just go to North Dakota!" advice, isn't it?

When I was 25 and had just gotten married, I went to Wyoming for a year to do to the oilfield thing. My wife had some student loans and had just received Lasik and we both had cars to pay off. I paid off everything and saved up enough money to fark off somewhere else for an easier job in a year. As a healthy, athletic 25 year old that job broke me down. 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as many as 19 weeks in a row of alternating heavy labor and mind-numbing tedium without a single day off in that weather (and new guys get the night shift) was enough for me.

I'm a college student again now and looking around at the other college seniors I know maybe one or two out of ten young men I meet could do that kind of work. Maybe one out of twenty young women.

The worst part is most of the people who did it for the "great" pay just spend it on trucks, clothes, trips somewhere expensive when they do get days off, or way more house than they can afford (and don't get to live in anyway). Other than myself I didn't know a single guy who started that $90K/year job and didn't accumulate at least six figures worth of debt before the end of the first year, and I didn't know many new guys who made it through a year.

Koodz:This is like that bullshiat "Just go to North Dakota!" advice, isn't it?

When I was 25 and had just gotten married, I went to Wyoming for a year to do to the oilfield thing. My wife had some student loans and had just received Lasik and we both had cars to pay off. I paid off everything and saved up enough money to fark off somewhere else for an easier job in a year. As a healthy, athletic 25 year old that job broke me down. 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as many as 19 weeks in a row of alternating heavy labor and mind-numbing tedium without a single day off in that weather (and new guys get the night shift) was enough for me.

I'm a college student again now and looking around at the other college seniors I know maybe one or two out of ten young men I meet could do that kind of work. Maybe one out of twenty young women.

The worst part is most of the people who did it for the "great" pay just spend it on trucks, clothes, trips somewhere expensive when they do get days off, or way more house than they can afford (and don't get to live in anyway). Other than myself I didn't know a single guy who started that $90K/year job and didn't accumulate at least six figures worth of debt before the end of the first year, and I didn't know many new guys who made it through a year.

Uh...

I did 5 winters in the oilfield. I was in my late 20s when I started. I'm also 5'11 and 130 lbs so I'm sure as heck not He-Man.

Where in the deep hades were you working that you did 14 hours? We did 12, because 12 is half a day. The only people I ever heard of that ever stayed more than 6 weeks straight were engineers, the rig pushes, and camp staff. New guys were lease hands, who were on a 2 weeks in/1 out rotation, like the majority of the rest of the crew.

The only reason I'm not still there is a genetic predisposition to peripheral circulatory issues, which goes poorly with -40 temperatures and the fact that I'm now over 40.

And yes, just winter. Northern muskeg doesn't tend to support machinery well unless it's frozen.

GrendelMk1:Where in the deep hades were you working that you did 14 hours? We did 12, because 12 is half a day. The only people I ever heard of that ever stayed more than 6 weeks straight were engineers, the rig pushes, and camp staff. New guys were lease hands, who were on a 2 weeks in/1 out rotation, like the majority of the rest of the crew.

If you are on the rig "working" for 12 hours you are often looking at a 14 hour day because of the location of the rig.

proteus_b:It's not the tow truck drivers' fault that some moran parked his car in a tow zone.

I rode in a tow truck yesterday and the driver said even though they were starting brand new drivers at $48K a year - they couldn't keep enough long term. He said half of them quit the first day it rains. That baffled me - if you qualify (clean driving record) - then it's much better money than you'll pull down at McDonald's or Wal-Mart, and the demand isn't cyclical like construction.

The main reason they have trouble keeping tow drivers is repo work. Getting shot at, beat on, etc. Just seems like too much risk for the reward.

liam76:GrendelMk1: Where in the deep hades were you working that you did 14 hours? We did 12, because 12 is half a day. The only people I ever heard of that ever stayed more than 6 weeks straight were engineers, the rig pushes, and camp staff. New guys were lease hands, who were on a 2 weeks in/1 out rotation, like the majority of the rest of the crew.

If you are on the rig "working" for 12 hours you are often looking at a 14 hour day because of the location of the rig.

Wow, I had NO IDEA! Do you count the hour you spend on the subway each way in your shift time? No?

And generally, the rig camp is within half an hour. Some rigs even have individual "modular" camps that sit on a cut a few hundred meters from the lease. The one exception I worked was near camp PJ outside Ft. St. John, where the crew bus had about an hour run, as you seem to think is normal.

As far as shady employers, drilling companies where I've worked (up north, can't speak for southern/coastal operations) generally keep it clean precisely to keep crew turnover down. Tripping pipe is a biatch if half your crew doesn't even know how power tongs work, or what the chain is for. And if you can't trip pipe in a timely manner, you're going to lose a LOT of time when you hit a flint strata a kilometer down that eats your bit. Given what drilling costs, no one wants to lose 8 hours for no reason.

GrendelMk1:Koodz: This is like that bullshiat "Just go to North Dakota!" advice, isn't it?

When I was 25 and had just gotten married, I went to Wyoming for a year to do to the oilfield thing. My wife had some student loans and had just received Lasik and we both had cars to pay off. I paid off everything and saved up enough money to fark off somewhere else for an easier job in a year. As a healthy, athletic 25 year old that job broke me down. 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as many as 19 weeks in a row of alternating heavy labor and mind-numbing tedium without a single day off in that weather (and new guys get the night shift) was enough for me.

I'm a college student again now and looking around at the other college seniors I know maybe one or two out of ten young men I meet could do that kind of work. Maybe one out of twenty young women.

The worst part is most of the people who did it for the "great" pay just spend it on trucks, clothes, trips somewhere expensive when they do get days off, or way more house than they can afford (and don't get to live in anyway). Other than myself I didn't know a single guy who started that $90K/year job and didn't accumulate at least six figures worth of debt before the end of the first year, and I didn't know many new guys who made it through a year.

Uh...

I did 5 winters in the oilfield. I was in my late 20s when I started. I'm also 5'11 and 130 lbs so I'm sure as heck not He-Man.

Where in the deep hades were you working that you did 14 hours? We did 12, because 12 is half a day. The only people I ever heard of that ever stayed more than 6 weeks straight were engineers, the rig pushes, and camp staff. New guys were lease hands, who were on a 2 weeks in/1 out rotation, like the majority of the rest of the crew.

The only reason I'm not still there is a genetic predisposition to peripheral circulatory issues, which goes poorly with -40 temperatures and the fact that I'm now over 40.

And yes, just winter. Northern muskeg doesn't tend to support machinery well unless it's frozen.

Sounds to me like you had an incredibly sketchy employer.

Weatherford International. 98 hours a week. You were told its six on, two off, but only if they didn't "need" you. The official rotation meant nothing. I heard from Halliburton and Schlumberger hands that it was better for them, but I'll tell you now that my 1/3 of the big three upstream service companies was shiat.

Wyoming is year round. What did you do with the rest of the year off? That recovery time might have helped you out. Also if I can ask what did you do? I literally carried pipes bigger than you.

liam76:GrendelMk1: Where in the deep hades were you working that you did 14 hours? We did 12, because 12 is half a day. The only people I ever heard of that ever stayed more than 6 weeks straight were engineers, the rig pushes, and camp staff. New guys were lease hands, who were on a 2 weeks in/1 out rotation, like the majority of the rest of the crew.

If you are on the rig "working" for 12 hours you are often looking at a 14 hour day because of the location of the rig.

proteus_b: It's not the tow truck drivers' fault that some moran parked his car in a tow zone.

There are a lot of shady tow truck operations out there.

This. Sometimes it was fifteen hours a day depending on the location. We stayed in apartments in Pinedale and drove out to Jonah Field. Shifts have to overlap because of the safety meeting and to hand off operations smoothly. Exactly 12 hours a shift doesn't work at all.

GrendelMk1:Wow, I had NO IDEA! Do you count the hour you spend on the subway each way in your shift time? No?

Shift time, no but I would call it a 14 hour day.

I used to work as a wireline engineer. We would have calls that were up to 6 hours away. If I am only on the rig for 10 hours, I would still say I had a 22 hour day.

GrendelMk1:And generally, the rig camp is within half an hour. Some rigs even have individual "modular" camps that sit on a cut a few hundred meters from the lease. The one exception I worked was near camp PJ outside Ft. St. John, where the crew bus had about an hour run, as you seem to think is normal.

It is a cyclical business. When prices are good and there is a lot of money in it small companies who pull stuff like that can and will put people on for ling ter, and for people who can handle that it is good farking money.